Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $1.05bn
after a court battle over patent infringement. The decision in the complex case came after the
nine-member jury began deliberations on
Wednesday. Apple filed its complaint in April 2011 and engaged
legions of America's highest-paid patent lawyers to
demand $2.5bn from its top smartphone
competitor. Samsung Electronics had fired back
with its own lawsuit seeking $399m. During closing arguments, Apple lawyer Harold
McElhinny claimed Samsung was having a "crisis of
design" after the 2007 launch of the iPhone, and
executives with the South Korean company were
determined to illegally cash in on the success of the
revolutionary device. Samsung's lawyers countered that it was simply
and legally giving consumers what they want:
smart phones with big screens. They said Samsung did not violate any of Apple's
patents and further alleged innovations claimed by
Apple were actually created by other companies. Samsung conceded that Apple makes great
products but said it does not have a monopoly on
the design of rectangle phones with rounded
corners that it claimed it created. The trial came after each side filed a blizzard of legal
motions and ignored advice by US district judge
Lucy Koh to settle the dispute out of court. Samsung has sold 22.7m smartphones and tablets
that Apple claimed uses its technology. Mr
McElhinny said those devices accounted for
$8.16bn in sales since June 2010. Apple and Samsung combined account for more
than half of global smartphone sales. As part of its lawsuit, Apple also demanded that
Samsung pull its most popular mobile phones and
computer tablets from the US market. From the beginning, legal experts and Wall Street
analysts viewed Samsung as the underdog in the
case. Apple's headquarters is a mere 10 miles from
the courthouse, and jurors were picked from the
heart of Silicon Valley where Apple's late founder
Steve Jobs is a revered technological pioneer.